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A while back, we were discussing memory management and how that works when developing for the iPhone. This time, I will be talking about frameworks. According to Apple’s documentation, frameworks are “a hierarchical directory that encapsulates shared resources, such as a dynamic shared library, nib files, image files, localized strings, header files, and reference documentation in a single package.” In other words, frameworks contain code that can make programming something easier, but isn’t necessarily needed in every program. By allowing developers to add only certain ones, they reduce the amount of unused packages, and therefore the app size may be lower.

On the iPhone, for instance, there is the UIKit framework, which is the main one for creating and manipulating interface objects. Apple by default includes this into most new projects dealing with the iPhone because it is necessary to allow the user to interact with applications. Some other frameworks available on the iPhone include CoreLocation (which is used for the GPS and other location services), AddressBook (which is used to access the contacts), and CoreAudio (which is used for audio). If the ones built in by Apple aren’t enough, developers can create their own and either choose to make them public or private based on what they are using them for.

See more iPhone Developer Intervention articles.